Caring for Pollinators - Bundesamt für Naturschutz

Roubik Small bees have a big job
2.3 Small bees have a big job - holding up biome biodiversity
by David W. Roubik, Panama
Open habitats are tree graveyards. Their shade, wood, fruit, flowers and seeds have been
replaced by a different set of species, obviously including humans, with their domesticated
and associate organisms. While ‘Homo consumatus’ appropriates landscapes and
subsequently thrives, the benefits of growing many kinds of plants and having natural
reservoirs of pollinators to service them has become a subject of considerable concern.
Which pollinators are important, and how does what we require complement or conflict with
their biology? One resounding successs has been the mobilization of plants and certain
pollinators, those we have learned to keep in mobile pollination units, throughout the globe.
The flaws in this technique are the gaps in our practical knowledge of biology―both of crops
and pollinators―and our inadequate understanding of their limits and susceptibilities. Many
of the fruits of our collective labors are tropical, and much of their continued existence is a
mystery, or attributable to blind luck. A science of pollination ecology and the awareness of
what pollinates these crops and how these animals live, particularly in the tropics of the
world, is the theme of this presentation. Our efforts to insure pollination through the use of
exotic species, like the honey bee Apis mellifera, which has become invasive in much of the
world, may result in either failure or success. The many other organisms that either were the
original pollinators, or that continue to perform their services, unappreciated, are themes that
should be foremost in future efforts to understand and guarantee continued pollination
services. The alternative, largely to continue the status quo, is untenable.
A tree graveyard, “woodhenge”?
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